The invention relates to a method and apparatus for making webs, mats and the like of reed-like plastic straws, wherein straw chains formed of adjacent, parallel plastic straws of unequal length are affixed like scales to a support sheet or backing. The invention also relates to the webs, mats and the like produced by this method and apparatus.
Webs or mats of plastic straws, as disclosed for example in the Austrian Pat. No. 312,225, provide excellent covering material for roofs because of their heat and sound insulating properties, their waterproof properties, their weather resistance and, last but not least, because of their visual impression as a "thatched roof". Such webs or mats are also suitable as facing and filling material for building fronts, for camouflage or for souddproof walls. However, the straw webs or mats could, until now, be produced only in a time-consuming and labor-intensive manner since the plastic straws had to be arranged by hand on a support sheet and then welded or glued together in sections.
This manner of production results in individual mats of relatively large area which are difficult to lay, which are expensive because of their uneconomical manufacture, and which represent an unsatisfactory imitation of natural reed products.